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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194116">Beginning Where You Are</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/TF%20Grognon'>TF Grognon (gloss)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter and Bickering, Exiled Scholar/Spellsword Mercenary, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Refugees, Science Fiction, Slow space travel, Sword Lesbian, cyborganic implants, dead giant robots, debt collection, some blood, some nonexplicit violence, vast civil service bureaucracies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:35:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,039</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194116</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/TF%20Grognon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p><cite>"There's no such thing as magic," Dove-Gray said.</cite><br/><cite>Min snorted and flexed her fingers. "Tell that to the magic bloodthirsty soulsucking sword that lives in my hand."</cite><br/>  </p>
</blockquote>A disgraced scholar and well-meaning mercenary forge an unlikely partnership.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fic In A Box</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beginning Where You Are</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/gifts">Requiem</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title and epigraph from June Jordan, "Shortsong from My Heart" (1975). Thanks to M. and N. for much help. ♥</p><p>I've never played Skyrim, which googling tells me is the origin of "spellsword", so in order to fulfill the prompt as given, I made up the concept that appears here.</p><p>Originally posted November 11; redated for author reveals.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <cite>beginning where you are</cite><br/>
<cite>I am beginning to belong/be free</cite><br/>
<cite>Let me be borne into the mystery</cite><br/>
<cite>with you</cite><br/>
<cite>Let me come home</cite>
  </p>
</blockquote><br/>The spaceport at Severny Station never had a state of grandeur from which it had now degenerated. There were never any glory days; it was always a utilitarian place, its few gestures toward some supposed ideal of the glamour of travel — a skylight dome over the main lobby, some curlicues around the arches framing each dock — rendered clumsily. The dome's plastic panes were clotted and corroded with salt and dirt, making the atrium even dimmer than it might otherwise have been.<p>Min no longer paid much attention to the atrium or its details. She passed through it so often that it had acquired the blur of familiarity that also overlay her sleeping berth and the metro tram cars.</p><p>Tonight, someone was crying. That, she noticed. All the stalls and shops were closed; even the Travel Authority office and ticket counters were shuttered. From a far corner, however, came the steady, leaky sound of wet sobs and sniffles.</p><p>Passengers were always sleeping through the day and night here, people stranded between destinations or simply waiting out long periods between connecting shuttles. There was, as well, the small population of intransients, those without the visas necessary or sufficient money to move on who'd taken refuge in the legal limbo of the spaceport. </p><p>Min slowed as she neared the source of the crying. To her surprise, she recognized the young woman. One of the intransients, she had been camped out here for some weeks. She had the broad cheekbones and elaborately-plaited and -netted hair of a scapist, yet she appeared to have been a scholar. That was odd in itself, since despite the received wisdom that the scholarly ranks were open to anyone who passed the general examinations, you didn't see many scapists in the pleated dark cloaks — nor, come to that, Dalascilki like Min, either.</p><p>The young woman's cloak was rent, however, its left lapel torn where her specialty badge had been. Even more than her attire, it was the pinch to her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw, that spoke of her rank.  <i>Pretty</i>, Min had thought each time she'd passed. <i>Shame she's a scholar.</i> </p><p>"Are you all right?" Min asked now.</p><p>The scholar had her knees drawn up to her chest, arms looped around, and her head down. Her shoulders rose and fell, but she didn't respond.</p><p>"I could get you —" Min looked around. Nothing was open. She couldn't offer to buy food or coffee when there was none to be had. "I've got some leftovers. Would you like them? Are you hungry?"</p><p>She didn't raise her head, but said, "I'm fine."</p><p>"You don't seem fine." </p><p>"Leave me alone."</p><p>Min hesitated, despite all her better instincts. The lady didn't want attention, fair enough. She should get going and forget about all of this. She was overdue for some sleep and painkillers as it was. </p><p>The mere thought of being alone and so far out of luck to have to live in the Severny Station port atrium, however, made Min go hollow. She'd had her low points, but nothing like this.</p><p>She patted down her pockets and satchel, but failed to find any loose currency. After another moment of Min's agonizing indecisiveness, the scholar sniffed wetly and mumbled, "Go <i>away</i>."</p><p>Min left as quietly as she could.</p><p>*</p><p>Biting her lip to stay quiet, Dove-Gray kept still, her head down, nose running, until she was absolutely sure she was alone again. She checked once or twice as the tall, handsome girl loped away across the atrium. The panicky sorrow that had driven her to tears for the first time she could remember was gone now, replaced by hot, trembling fury.</p><p>Crying was nothing more than a craven bid for attention; she'd learned that lesson well before she could speak or read. She ought to have been better, stronger, than to cry. So she was furious at herself for giving in to the tears in the first place. That she'd been <i>seen</i> crying was almost more than she could bear. </p><p>*</p><p>When she was next at the port, dashing through the atrium to make a cheap cargo flight, Min didn't have time to look for the scholar. In the middle of the job, however, she remembered the woman's hunched shoulders and throaty voice, how she drew in on herself as if to shrink. Grimacing, Min switched her footing, shifted her weight forward, and dove at the security-bot before it could release any stun-gas. She scrambled up its bulk and hauled herself into an open vent.</p><p>From there, she dropped into the sweatshop — currently empty, since it was long past curfew — and made her way to the boss's office. He was expecting her, already babbling excuses before she slid open the door, telling her all about his three wives and their babies and how <i>important</i> he was. He simply couldn't believe that it had come to this.</p><p>"See, that's the thing," Min told him. He was going to rush her, she just knew it, and the anticipation of a new fight pounded in her chest, joining the jangling thrill of the one she'd just left. "I'm not one to say whether you should or shouldn't live."</p><p>He gaped at her, his breath whistling. "Begging you," he said. "Please."</p><p>"Not my call," she said and shook the blade out into her hand. It shone like nothing else in this dim, sad little place. She felt it surge and nearly thrum in her hold; it had been disappointed by the fight with the bot. Here, it knew, there was blood, maybe more, for it.</p><p>"I can pay!" He tossed credit chips here and there; she did not look away from his face. They were just a distraction, and a bad one at that. He all but shouted his plan of attack, and she was ready for him, stopping him as he lunged to the left. She held him by the front of his tunic, the sword at his throat, as he writhed and wheezed.</p><p>"You could have paid," she said, "long time ago. Now's too late, according to my boss."</p><p>"Take it," he said, and his face glistened with sweat and tears. "Take it all, just please don't hurt —"</p><p>The tip of the blade twitched, then skated down his front, cutting a glyph as it went. Min took half a step back, watching as his blood welled and ran down the blade, only to whisper, sizzle faintly, and vanish. With a nauseating roll in her gut, she yanked the blade away and shook her hand until the sword disappeared.</p><p>The target was still breathing when she left him, slumped over on the floor. She grabbed a few chips on her way out. If nothing else, the syndicate	 who'd hired her might get a kick out of the failed bribe.</p><p> </p><p>The sword was implanted in her hand out on Kuu-4. It was right at the start of her career as a retrieval specialist. Many enforcers were similarly equipped, at least according to the gaudier data-novelas, so she hadn't been concerned by the order to visit one of the satellite's more reclusive mage-surgeons.</p><p>They'd scanned her, evaluated her body mass and musculature, consulted with her about her favored fighting styles, put her through several hardlight simulations to evaluate those styles, spent a day and half planning her implant. Quantum-uncertain sharplight technology was well beyond Min's understanding: the concept resulted in a thing that sometimes existed and sometimes did not, but when it did, it was very real. Luckily, she didn't have to design the blade, nor perform the operation. She just had to undergo it.</p><p>She woke, retching from the potent anesthesia, with a truly beautiful cutlass to call her own. Or to be owned by.</p><p>Its hilt dwelled <i>in potentiâ</i> among the bones of her hand, while the blade either  retracted into her wrist or was coextensive, but in another dimension, with her wrist in this one.</p><p>It cut beautifully, like no sword she'd ever held or heard of. It was perfectly weighted, when it existed, to her preferences and needs, making up for her shortcomings while elaborating her strengths. She swung it like a deadly extension of her own arm, cut through flesh as easily as singing a song. It was not quite a weapon, nor a prosthesis, but it wasn't <i>hers</i>, either.</p><p>It cooperated with her. Their goals were one and the same — at least, so far they had been.</p><p>It also drank blood and, she was fairly sure (though no one would confirm, or deny, her suspicion), gnawed up dying souls. It metered her job performance by the milliliter and reconfigured the phase boundary between life and death.</p><p>It was weird, creepy magic. </p><p>She tried like hell not to think about it for very long at all. When she did, her thoughts warped and veered <i>around</i> the subject, then  skittered away. As they departed, those thoughts were changed and unfamiliar, no longer her own.</p><p> </p><p>Carefully, keeping an eye out for security patrols, Min made her way back to the bunk she'd rented. As her pulse slowed to normal and her sweat cooled, her thoughts returned to the crying scholar. Min didn't know <i>why</i> she was thinking of her again. There she was, washing blood off her hands and changing into clean clothes before going out for a drink, like she did after every job, yet what she really wanted to do was tell the scholar about her night. Make her laugh. </p><p>Maybe all she'd really wanted, Min thought later, when the night was proceeding nicely with a handsome local lady, was just to work off the buzz of a good fight. Hands on the woman's hips, mouth on her neck sucking at the pulsepoint, she was all set.</p><p>What more could she possibly need?</p><p>*</p><p>Min lived on Severny Station for the same reason intransients gathered in the port there. The station was old, predating most of the civic unifications and federations, old enough that one didn't need any special documents to arrive. Furthermore, Severny maintained historical relationships with several remote locations, places that had been left behind after the state contracted in the wake of the Locusts. Travel to those sites from any regular state port was impossible. </p><p>If a person needed to get lost, Severny Station was the port to do it from. While you were within the port proper, you didn't, legally, exist anywhere. Of course, as soon as you stepped out of the port into the station-city proper, you resumed existing.</p><p>Min's legal status was secure; she existed just fine. With the kind of work she did, however, being able to come and go across the breadth of the system was invaluable.</p><p>The intransients, on the other hand, were stuck in the port atrium until they could get enough currency together to buy passage to an outpost station or to purchase fake documents.</p><p>Over the next few days, as she waited for new jobs to come up, Min couldn't stop thinking about the crying scholar. She wanted to apologize, first of all, but her preoccupation went deeper. She wanted to know what had brought someone so young and so educated just so incredibly low. While it wasn't unheard of for a scholar to be sent, such cases usually concerned large-scale profiteering and longterm-exploitation, if not outright murder.</p><p>Possibly Min was being naive, even foolish, but that crying woman did not seem capable of deceit, let alone extreme physical violence.</p><p>Maybe Min spent so much time thinking about the scholar because she herself was bored and lonely. This was her first time back in her flat since Charlotte had left, and the place didn't feel right. Corners were deeper, edges sharper, and it was far too quiet.</p><p>She rested and caught up on the news. It was all the usual disordered tidbits and outright gossip, serious issues mixed in with trivialities and flung into the datastreams willy-nilly. Two of the old Martial Defenders, the giant robots  converted into housing complexes after the war, had collapsed, killing hundreds, and the usual reactionaries were blaming the scapist tenants; the lower chambers of Parliament were deadlocked on funding for aquacultural initiatives; a pop star had a surprise baby and everyone had their own theory on who the sperm donor was. Min read up on the baby theories to distract herself, but her thoughts continued to drift back to the scholar.</p><p>When she returned to the port to haggle for  discounts on transport prices, she stopped at the nearly-deserted Travel Authority office. Her drinking buddy Orwin was on the desk and more than happy to share gossip about the various intransients as well as check Min's business privileges regarding subcontractors.</p><p>Orwin shook back the fringe of hair from their eyes. "All it takes to melt that warrior's armor is a pretty face and a literal sob story, huh?"</p><p>Busy checking her data-feed and updating her professional availability, Min muttered something noncommittal.</p><p>"You're a soft touch," they said and smirked when she looked up. </p><p>She frowned. "Take that back!"</p><p>"Can't," Orwin said. "Not that I finally know your deep dark secret."</p><p>She huffed out a breath. "Please. Everyone I've ever met knows I'm an idiot around attractive women."</p><p>"But now I've got <i>proof</i>." </p><p>"Trust me —" She paused in the exit, grinning. "That's really not hard to come by."</p><p>*</p><p>Dove-Gray kept her back straight and expression distant as the woman from the other night approached. </p><p>"I wanted to apologize for the other night," the woman started to say. She was taller than Dove-Gray, broad through the shoulders and rangy; her smile never faltered, a streak of white across her sharp, friendly face. "I never should have —"</p><p>"Apology accepted," Dove-Gray said quickly.</p><p>"But —"</p><p>"Forgotten," Dove-Gray said. She cleared her throat, sure that, given an opening, the woman would push the issue, and added, "What can I do for you?"</p><p>The woman looked bewildered, though just for a moment. "Actually, there is something. Can I buy you lunch so we can talk about it?"</p><p>Dove-Gray smoothed the nonexistent wrinkles in her robe. "I can't —" <i>Leave the spaceport</i>, she didn't want to say. </p><p>"Min Pengerla." She stuck her hand out.</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded and touched her knuckles gently against Pengerla's palm. "Dove-Gray."</p><p>"I could bring lunch over? Or — I know you can't leave the building, but we could go to the caf?"</p><p>How she knew Dove-Gray could not leave was a question to answer later. Just now, as her stomach rumbled and Dove-Gray shifted uncomfortably, Old Praba, the chief security guard, was starting up his hourly stroll. While he was not legally allowed to harass the intransients physically, he liked to do everything he could, both verbally and with body-language, to remind them that they were not welcome here.</p><p>"Caf," she said, rising.</p><p>She asked the Danlorian beside her to watch her stall — her worldly possessions consisted of a change of clothes and several data-scrolls she'd rescued from an overflowing compost tube — and led Pengerla to an empty table at the back of the cafeteria. She was stiff, her knees and lower back aching, but she hid it, she thought, fairly well.</p><p>"Some soup and hot tea would be nice," she told Pengerla as she took her seat.</p><p>Pengerla hesitated, as if caught off-guard. After a moment, she shrugged and headed off to the bank of dispensers and hot trays.</p><p>While she waited, Dove-Gray gazed out the false window. Its programming was long obsolete, and its refresh rate jumped around, but the scene it tried to suggest — fresh spring buds on delicate willow branches — was pretty enough, though admittedly insipid and clichéd.</p><p>"Two hot liquids," Pengerla announced as she returned. "And also some protein bread because, no offense, you look like you could use it."</p><p>"No offense," Dove-Gray repeated. The bread smelled wonderful, rich with mushrooms and sprouted grains. </p><p>"I'm paying," Pengerla told her. She scraped a seat over to the table and straddled it, planting an elbow on the table and cupping her chin in her hand as she reached for a piece of bread with the other. "So eat up. Get your fill."</p><p>This woman was terribly pushy, Dove-Gray noted, but she set that aside for the moment. "What did you want to ask me?"</p><p>Chewing enthusiastically, Pengerla held up her hand, then circled it impatiently as she forced herself to swallow. "Getting right to business, okay."</p><p>"Is this business?"</p><p>"Guess so," Pengerla replied and brushed the crumbs off her hands. "It's not personal, anyway."</p><p>"Good," Dove-Gray said. Each time that she remembered all over again that Pengerla had not only seen her crying, but <i>talked to her about it</i>, was worse than the last. "Please continue."</p><p>Pengerla eyed her, a speculative look on her face. Then she brushed off her hands, <i>again</i>, sending more crumbs all over the table. "You speak Rakaplast?"</p><p>"Of course. Standard as well as the metropolitan dialect. Do you want lessons?" She wasn't so fluent that she should be teaching the language, but Dove-Gray didn't need to share that particular piece of information.</p><p>"What about Jahublé?"</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded. "Proficiently."</p><p>"Want a job?"</p><p>"I can teach you here," Dove-Gray said. "Would that be acceptable?"</p><p>"No," Pengerla said. "I mean, do you want a job with me? Out there? Translating and negotiating?"</p><p>"I can't —" She swallowed and waved away her words. Old Praba was making his way through the caf, clutching a large tankard of coffee while his other hand rested on the nightstick at his belt. Dove-Gray fixed her posture and leveled her gaze on Pengerla. "Thank you, but unfortunately I need to decline."</p><p>At least she'd gotten a good meal out of this. She needed to be grateful for such small victories.</p><p>"Let me explain."</p><p>"Pengerla," Dove-Gray said, "thank you, but —"</p><p>"Call me Min."</p><p>Dove-Gray narrowed her eyes at the informality but Pengerla — <i>Min</i> — kept talking. </p><p>"I can arrange the travel documents," she said, as if she were suggesting another cup of tea or that they share a pastry. "I've got contractor privs."</p><p>"You can..."  Although Dove-Gray prided herself on her equanimity, she was shaken. Her pulse was suddenly loud, her nerves twanging with exhilaration. "No, you can't. You're lying."</p><p>Pengerla scowled at that. "I don't lie, actually. Especially not to people I want to work with."</p><p>"Either you're having some fun at the expense of someone much less fortunate — in which case, thanks very much for the bread and soup, but I need to get back to my stall now — or you're delusional. In <i>that</i> case, please get some help."</p><p>Dove-Gray had half-risen from her seat when Pengerla grabbed her wrist with enough force to stop her cold. "I don't lie, I'm not delusional, and I'm not making fun of you."</p><p>Dove-Gray looked down at Pengerla's hand. It was covered with a delicate, spidery tattoo from wrist to the tips of the fingers. "Pengerla."</p><p>"Min."</p><p>"Fine, <i>Min</i>. Let me go."</p><p>Min complied immediately, but she continued scowling. "Sorry. That guard over there looked like he was coming our way. Didn't want you to run into him."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>She shrugged, just one shoulder. "Dunno. He looks like bad news." She smiled widely. "Like the kind of asshole who'd have some fun with the less fortunate. Hate those people."</p><p>Perhaps Dove-Gray deserved that. She nodded, indicating as much, and sat back down to listen to the offer. Min claimed not only that she could get Dove-Gray travel documents, but that eventually Dove-Gray could earn enough to buy new identity markers out on Kuu.</p><p>"I don't want a new identity," Dove-Gray told her. She wasn't about to leave behind everything she'd worked for, even if it had been taken from her. She'd get it back.</p><p>"Okay," Min replied, untroubled. "I just thought you —"</p><p>"Don't," Dove-Gray said.</p><p>"Don't what?"</p><p>"Think about me. I don't need any of this."</p><p>Min spread her arms and laughed a little. "Right, you've got everything going so well here. Sorry, my mistake."</p><p>Dove-Gray saw her chance — undreamed of, impossible — to escape start to fade into nothing. "What I mean is," she said slowly, deliberating over each word, "that I don't want to be an object of pity. Certainly not of charity."</p><p>"Look, I just want someone to translate alien gobbledygook and maybe hang out with," Min said wearily. "I love my job, love it more than anything, but there's a shitload of downtime and travel and it gets boring, being alone with my own thoughts."</p><p>"I love being alone with my thoughts," Dove-Gray said.</p><p>"Well, good for you, then." Min's voice was sharp and she stood up, her seat clattering behind her. "This was a bad idea, you're right, I'm sorry for taking up your time."</p><p>"Don't apologize," Dove-Gray said. Desperation scoured her throat, gripped her hands into claws. "Could you sit back down? Please."</p><p>Min stood still, obviously considering whether she wanted to save face by continuing to storm out or if she could afford to do what Dove-Gray requested. Finally, she collapsed back into her seat, all the tension gone from her lanky frame as she reclined.</p><p>"Okay, starting over?"</p><p>"Yes," Dove-Gray said, then remembered to add, "thank you."</p><p>"I need a translator. You need to get out of here. Want to try?"</p><p>Dove-Gray felt her heart thundering at the top of her throat. Her fingers tingled. She longed to rush for the doors <i>now</i>.</p><p>She nodded and said, as calmly as she could, "Yes, I would like to try."</p><p>Min's smile widened, impossibly far. "All right," she said. "Glad to hear it."</p><p>*</p><p>Min supposed that Dove-Gray had every right to be suspicious, even off-putting. She didn't know Min, after all, and she'd clearly fallen on very hard times. Besides, she was a scholar, and they were notoriously snobbish and prickly. Yet it still rankled. </p><p>The irritation returned when they had set out for their first job. Min arranged for Dove-Gray's few possessions to go into her storage space and brought her a few changes of clothes. </p><p>"These aren't new," Dove-Gray said, looking through the satchel.</p><p>"No, they're mostly things left behind at my place, and some I got secondhand. I thought they'd suit you all right?" Min wanted to apologize, of all the  ridiculous impulses, and squashed that feeling as flat as she could. "I guessed at the sizes but I'm pretty good at that."</p><p>When Dove-Gray frowned, she looked even younger, somehow. Her identity documents listed her as twenty-six, but just now, she looked all of twelve, if that. "Given it a lot of study, I suppose?"</p><p>"Yeah," Min replied, exasperated. "I study women's bodies <i>a lot</i>. All the time. Can't get enough." She shifted her own satchel higher on her shoulder. "We should get going, transport leaves soon."</p><p>When they arrived at their third-class berth on the transport, Dove-Gray locked herself into the narrow shower-stall and did not come out for nearly an hour. Min took the opportunity to claim the lower bunk and reclined there, head pillowed on her bag, to review the specs of the upcoming job.</p><p>She must have dozed off. When she woke, the transport was in motion, shuddering past atmo. The stall door stood open and the bunk above her was now slightly convex. Min rolled over and went back to sleep.</p><p>The journey to Rakapla was thirty hours long. Dove-Gray didn't stir from her bunk for the first eighteen of them. Min's original plan had been to use the trip to get to know each other. In the wake of Dove-Gray's irritating curtness, Min decided to be grateful for the time to herself.</p><p>When Dove-Gray did wake, Min broke into two packs of stew she'd bought from a vendor in the boarding queue. They shared the bottom bunk, Min leaning against the wall, as they ate.</p><p>"We should talk over how we're going to approach this," Min said when Dove-Gray finished eating.</p><p>"I assume I'll translate any bribes and the like for you."</p><p>"Bribes?"</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded and sipped her drink. "I've been reviewing Rakaplast etiquette and general social expectations in both business and civil contexts. We'll need to cloak any and all bribes as a gift, of course, something unexpected, thanks for a hard job well-done, the usual rigmarole."</p><p>Dumbstruck, all Min was able to say was, "Wow."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>She sat forward; Dove-Gray leaned back. "What do you think we're doing?"</p><p>"I just told you." When Dove-Gray feigned patience like this, she looked less pretty and more sour. "Please listen better."</p><p>"No, back up. What do you think this job <i>is?</i> My job. What do I do?"</p><p>"You're a smuggler," Dove-Gray said promptly. "Possibly an arms dealer, but if so, you're not very good at it. I'd expect an arms dealer would travel in much greater comfort."</p><p>Min snorted a little and sat back. "I'm not a smuggler."</p><p>"Sorry, 'logistics expert'. Is that better?"</p><p>"Not a smuggler."</p><p>"'Confidential assets transporter'?"</p><p>"Dove, I'm not a smuggler."</p><p>"Dove-Gray, thank you. It's one name. There's no nickname."</p><p>Min sighed. Of course there wasn't. Of course that's what she was going to focus on. </p><p>Min pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and breathed in and out. When she'd managed to refocus, she said, "I don't traffic in goods, period, whatever you want to call it. And I don't break the law. Much. Not if I can help it." She looked up and smiled. "Don't need that kind of attention."</p><p>Dove-Gray was silent. She didn't even smile at the joke there at the end.</p><p>Min looked at her and, once again, squashed the urge to apologize. For what? Dove-Gray was the one who'd made the mistake. "I'm a debt chaser. Sometimes a bounty hunter, but without my own ship, that's not very easy."</p><p>Dove-Gray's lip curled. "You're a loan shark."</p><p>"No. I'm a freelance debt-chaser, subcontracting to various entities who'd like their money back. They're the loan sharks." She rolled back her shoulders and added, "I'm the threat that comes true."</p><p>Dove-Gray's expression sharpened — her eyes widening, her mouth curving with delight — into something a little like surprise and a lot like relish. "You're the heavy? <i>You?</i>"</p><p>"I can hold my own," Min told her. Clearly, what Dove-Gray was relishing was not the fact of Min's job but its inherent absurdity and the opportunity it afforded to mock Min. "Trust me on that."</p><p>Dove-Gray rose and pushed their eating containers into the slot for compost. She washed her hands, then asked, as if checking the time, "One more question, if you don't mind."</p><p>"Hit me," Min said.</p><p>"Do I have to sleep with you?"</p><p>"What? What!" If she'd been drinking something, she would have spewed the liquid everywhere. "What? Of course not! No. No way! Nothing like that."</p><p>"All right," Dove-Gray said calmly.</p><p>In the face of that serenity, Min felt incredibly messy — sticky, somehow, and disheveled. That was a feeling that would become very familiar, very quickly. She gulped a few times and asked, as steadily as she could, "Why the hell would you think that?"</p><p>Dove-Gray shrugged.<br/>
"It would appear that some of my primary assumptions were incorrect —"</p><p>"Yeah, like me being a bribe-happy arms dealer?"</p><p>"— as well as ill-conceived."</p><p>"I'll say."</p><p>"I'm merely ascertaining the parameters of our relationship."</p><p>In any other context, Min might have had fun with that phrasing: <i>ascertain <b>these</b> parameters, honey</i>, she might have said, then leered outrageously until the woman laughed and fell victim to her charm. Here, however, she simply nodded as if she understood. "No sex. That's a big-ass parameter."</p><p>The corners of Dove-Gray's mouth deepened. "I see."</p><p>"Unless you want to, of course," Min put in.</p><p>"Excuse me?"</p><p>She felt out of breath, as if she'd finished off a particularly big opponent. "Just saying! Don't want to cramp your style. Don't want to take any possibilities off the table. That kind of thing."</p><p>"You're ridiculous." She spoke as if coming to a conclusion. Confirming a suspicion.</p><p>"Sure," Min replied, "but also I'm serious."</p><p>Dove-Gray regarded her steadily for several uncomfortable moments. Min resisted the urge to squirm, much. "All right."</p><p>"Basically, I can't and won't tell you what to do, outside of job stuff," Min said, "but if there's anything you <i>want</i> to do, then let me know. Get it?"</p><p>"Oh, yes," Dove-Gray said, smiling now. "I understand."</p><p>"Good, because I'm usually a little lost," Min admitted. A few moments later, as confusion rapidly clouded her thoughts, she asked, "Wait, do you <i>want</i> to sleep with me?"</p><p>Dove-Gray stretched, the motion slow and deliberate, before replying. "Well. You're quite attractive, particularly physically —"</p><p>"Ha, thanks!" She considered flexing, just to underline the point, but refrained. It was bad enough how eager she was for the answer.</p><p>"— though of course also fairly crude. Vulgar, certainly. Rough around the edges."</p><p>"Oh," Min said. Why'd she feel just so crestfallen? Surely she hadn't had enough time to get her hopes up. </p><p>"I'll let you know," Dove-Gray concluded.</p><p>"Don't do me any favors," Min muttered before she could stop herself.</p><p>"No danger of that," Dove-Gray replied smoothly.</p><p> </p><p>Lenders and others who were owed money posted the details on various data-feeds, some more legitimate than others. From there, chasers like Min claimed a target for a specific period, during which they held it exclusive. By the close of the period, the debt was paid or their claim was forfeited.</p><p>She explained the system to Dove-Gray while they waited in an empty office building. Rakapla City had grown over a former mining concern, the remains of which still scarred the asteroid's surface. The mines and transit tracks had filled back up with toxic slush. Tonight, she and Dove-Gray were across one such filthy canal from the target's far better appointed suite. </p><p>As she listened, Dove-Gray nodded but did not appear all that interested. Min could hardly blame her for that. The details of debt chasing were terrifically boring, every bit as much as they were depressing. She tried to take corporate targets, or at least debts large enough to become impersonal. The lower-scale, highly personal debts were too upsetting to consider. It was the <i>fight</i> that she enjoyed, not what brought her to the target. Extraction and confrontation got her going, rather than debt and frustrated promises.</p><p>Then Dove-Gray launched into a stream of questions for which Min had few clear answers. How much did exclusive claims cost? Were they calculated as percentages of recovered monies or flat fees? At what rate did they increase when claim periods were very short? Were the rates indexed to any external markets or private equity exchanges?</p><p>"You should know these things." Dove-Gray sounded disappointed. "This is your livelihood."</p><p>"I know enough," Min said. She kept her focus on the target's suite across the canal. "I'm doing fine, thanks anyway."</p><p>"Don't thank me, you have a lot to improve before any gratitude is due."</p><p>Min's jaw tightened. "You're unbelievable."</p><p>Dove-Gray didn't respond. She held a scope up to the data circlet on her wrist and squinted through it. "They're shutting down over there."</p><p>Min checked her own scope. Below them, the canal traffic was increasing and several workers in the target's office were turning off lights and filing toward the elevators.</p><p>"All right," she said. "Here we go."</p><p>Min tried to swallow the adrenaline already building in her system. She always got like this before a job, but tonight was  different. Dove-Gray would disclose the purpose of their visit, then she'd step in and crack her knuckles, they'd give him a twelve-hour deadline. This was a nice, straightforward intro for Dove-Gray to how the job worked.</p><p>They slipped into the building while the doors stood open to the ferry landing, then made their way up the stairs. Once inside the target's office, Dove-Gray explained in rapid Rakaplast why they were here while Min hovered behind her.</p><p>She was so accustomed to doing this alone that now, with Dove-Gray doing the talking, she felt superfluous. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her boots creaking. <i>Just let her talk,</i> she told herself, <i>and we'll be fine.</i></p><p>The target let out a bellow and lunged at Dove-Gray. Min went to push Dove-Gray aside, ready to show him the edge of her blade. Dove-Gray stood still, unflinching, and raised her palm to the target's face.</p><p>Something snapped and his nose began bleeding heavily. Satisfied, Dove-Gray nodded, adding another comment in Rakaplast. Groaning, holding his face and muttering darkly, he shoved an expensive new-model byte-scroll at them.</p><p>"He's paying now," Dove-Gray told Min and handed her the screen for her thumbprint. "I told him to throw in a little extra for our trouble."</p><p>"You —" Min shook her head. <i>Unbelievable.</i> "All right."</p><p> </p><p>They'd finished the job nearly two days early. If she'd been alone, Min would have taken those days off, rented herself a nice room down by the spaceport, and caught up on sleep and socializing.</p><p>Dove-Gray simply looked baffled when Min suggested this plan. "No."</p><p>"No?"</p><p>"No, that's a terrible plan," Dove-Gray said. "Find us another job. We should make the most of this extra time."</p><p>"It's not extra time," Min tried to say. "It's —"</p><p>Dove-Gray stopped folding her clothes and stared at Min. "You're really serious? You'd rather sleep and drink and — whatever it is you do in your free time?"</p><p>"Yeah," Min said. "I'm really serious. Where's the problem?"</p><p>Dove-Gray fastened her satchel and set it aside. "You seem upset."</p><p>"I'm not upset!" Min scrubbed her hand back through her hair.</p><p>"Agitated, then."</p><p>"What'd you do to him back there? What was that hand thing?"</p><p>Dove-Gray picked up Min's data-feeder and started scrolling through the job streams. Distractedly, she replied, "Some elementary palm of wisdom."</p><p>"I didn't know you could do that."</p><p>"You don't know very much about me at all."</p><p>"True."</p><p>"Which stands to reason," Dove-Gray pointed out. "Since we only just met."</p><p>"I just feel like —"</p><p>"What?"</p><p>Now that she had to say it out loud, Min realized how dumb she sounded. She mumbled, "I should know that kind of thing." </p><p>"What kind of thing?"</p><p>"Why are you always so <i>calm?</i>" The woman who'd been weeping alone in the atrium seemed as far away as Min's homeworld.</p><p>"Shouldn't I be?"</p><p>"Yeah, I guess."</p><p>"You're worked up," Dove-Gray said, like Min didn't know that. If she kept using such a deliberately reasonable tone, Min was definitely going to get more annoyed. "Tell me what sort of thing you feel entitled to know about me."</p><p>"Important facts like, oh, you can break a guy's nose without touching him!"</p><p>"All scholars know the palm of wisdom. I thought everyone knew that."</p><p>"Yeah, but that's like...goofy magic from data-novelas," Min said. "What you did was real."</p><p>"Because it's not goofy magic," Dove-Gray said. "It's an integral part of the common scholarly corpus."</p><p>Min was hot and breathless, the exasperation and confusion of the last few days ratcheting up all the adrenaline that usually came with a job. "So why aren't you a scholar any more?"</p><p>Dove-Gray's jaw tightened. "I'll always be a scholar."</p><p>Min circled her hand impatiently. "You know what I mean. Why'd your badge get ripped off? How'd you end up on Severny Station?"</p><p>"That's private." Dove-Gray tipped up her chin and looked away. She had a remarkable ability to shut her whole face down as surely as a steel curtain falling.</p><p>"We're working together," Min persisted. "I just think we ought to know —"</p><p>"You know as much as you need to know to work with me," Dove-Gray replied. "I told you all the languages I know. My specialties are in digicalligraphy and ancient natural history, particularly lichens. I can perform mid-level feats of the palm of wisdom. That's what you need to know."</p><p>"But I mean —" Min broke off when Dove-Gray's expression shifted from 'blank' to 'stonily furious'. "Forget it."</p><p>Min left to find a pub or caf, preferably somewhere with good music loud enough to drown out her own thoughts. She tried three different venues, two of which she'd visited on previous errands to Rakapla, but nothing suited. Hunched into her parka, she crossed the three bridges over one of the widest canals until her hair was wet from snow and she couldn't feel the tips of her ears.</p><p>She'd hoped Dove-Gray would be asleep when she returned, but no such luck. They packed in silence and left for an early shuttle to a minor commercial station at which Dove-Gray had secured them two jobs.</p><p> </p><p>The shuttle was creaky, shuddering dangerously on acceleration, and almost loud enough to save them from conversation. Min, however, couldn't leave well enough alone.</p><p>"I'm sorry about earlier." Min handed Dove-Gray a packet of smoked legume crisps. "I didn't mean to pry."</p><p>"Yes, you did," Dove-Gray said. "What you're actually sorry about is that you didn't succeed."</p><p>For several moments, Min had no idea what to say to that. Dove-Gray was right, but that wasn't what was tripping her up. It was the sheer confident <i>rudeness</i> of the observation that drew her up short.</p><p>She put her feet up on the bulkhead opposite and tore into her lunch packet. While she ate, she reviewed listings on her data feed, then started watching reviews of another pop idol's foray into serious acting.</p><p>"I do want to get to know you," Dove-Gray said about an hour later. Her voice was soft; if she were anyone else, it might have even qualified as 'hesitant'. Yet it came through the ambient rumble of the engines clearly. "But I don't do well under interrogation."</p><p>"Yeah, well," Min said, thumbing up the brightness on her feed, "I don't do  interrogation, so we're even."</p><p>*</p><p>More than anything, Dove-Gray hated not having the right answer. A good percentage of her neuroses and hang-ups, nightmares and personal bugbears, stemmed from this single, fundamental fact. The more she knew, the better her information, the more secure she felt.</p><p>Even if she'd been willing to open up her life to Min's scrutiny, Dove-Gray had no way to explain what had happened to her.  She had no answer, no way to explain, the most significant event of her adult life.</p><p>She'd worked to become a scholar since childhood, first in the state-run home for scapist orphans, then at the private academy to which she'd won a place. She passed the civic examinations on her first attempt, something only 5% of applicants managed, and she'd earned her promotion to the rank of fellow eight years earlier than the average. Being a scholar was what she did and who she was, but also everything she'd always expected to be.</p><p>Then, one morning as she stepped off the campus tram, she was barred from entering. </p><p>Pursuant to Order #8957, she was sent down from the fellowship, stripped of any and all privileges, identity markers, and data-feed access. (Sometimes, in the ensuing weeks, she missed that access the most. She didn't need much to live on, but losing access to research and knowledge bases was nearly an amputation.)</p><p>She lived in fellowship housing; she was not allowed to return there. Military security handed her a receipt for her personal possessions (retrievable after 90 days unless they contained any fellowship property) and escorted her to the port, where they put on her a shuttle bound for Severny Station. The ticket fee was deducted from her account, which was then frozen.</p><p>Within thirty breathless, terrifying minutes, frigid with panic and incomprehension, she was thrown back in time — reduced to the same <i>thing</i> she had been at eleven months upon her arrival in the capital: a living being with an identity number and nothing else. Even her name had been an invention of the state. At least she retained that.</p><p>While living in the Severny Station port atrium, she reviewed, again and again, from as many angles as she could imagine, the weeks leading up to her expulsion. Nothing stood out — they had been utterly normal. The most notable 'exceptions' were remarkable only in their pure banality: She'd filed a request for updated data sockets in her study carrel the previous month. She'd observed, but not reported, another fellow splicing into civilian entertainment feeds. She'd moved her modest savings to a riskier speculative enterprise. Several days before she was sent down, she'd been away from her carrel for half a day in order to chase down an elderly amateur expert in metadata diplomatics. </p><p>Her search took her deep into the complex of the Martial Defenders. The Defenders, the old giant robots, knelt before the sea with their huge arms around each other.</p><p>They had protected the system for generations, until they were overwhelmed by the Locusts, hurled back to the capital's surface. In the frenzied days of the scapists' flight and Locust victory, the Defenders' interiors had been converted into slapdash makeshift emergency housing for those escaping the violated moons and flooding into the capital. Now, a generation and a half later, the Martial Defenders still sheltered the vast majority of the scapists.</p><p>Without a local guide, it was next to impossible to find one's way inside the complex. Despite her scholar's robes, Dove-Gray could not find a guide to hire; everyone took one look at her face and the net of beads in her hair and assumed she belonged here. </p><p>She lost a good hour at the outset climbing the interior. The skeleton of the robot was formed of vertical columns that had sprouted housing platforms like mushrooms on the sides of logs.</p><p>She climbed up, and up, using old metal handholds, rope ladders, even a few pulleys. She passed open terraces crowded with old men playing cards and through kitchens billowing with spicy steam. At one landing, her foot went through a rotten plank; a pair of small children looked up at her through the hole. She tucked her robe into the waist of her trousers and climbed higher, then laterally, across a sturdy plastiflex bridge and then a swaying series of manhole covers linked by chains. It was noisy, occasionally clamorous, but there were also frequent pockets of quiet, startling for their suddenness. Down a narrow corridor, she slid past someone sleeping on a tufted mat, then stepped into a rush-lined room as silent as a museum.</p><p>Of course, she was inside a historical relic, a living museum of recent history, so perhaps that stood to reason.</p><p>When, breathless and disheveled, she reached what she'd taken to be her destination, she learned that she was three columns off. She took a heart-stopping swing-ferry across to the next column, then climbed down, across, and back up through a narrow spiraling ladder cut through the center of the column.</p><p>There, a sullen girl, annoyed at being disturbed from watching her data-novela, told her the news. Her quarry had died the week before. </p><p>Dove-Gray lit a resin stick at the tiny shrine bearing his data-portrait, then leaned against the nearest wall and closed her eyes. She did not pray; she didn't believe in any of the old forces from the moons. </p><p>She was on the verge of tears — not from grief (she'd never met the old man, only read his pugnacious letters to specialist forums and streams) so much as exhaustion and frustration.</p><p>"Little sister," an old woman said and jumped, catlike, down onto the platform. "I need to ask you a favor."</p><p>Dove-Gray swallowed and wiped her eyes. Scapists always expected that she could perform miracles for them, that, somehow, her scholar's robe and professional rank meant that she was their ticket to civic favors and improved services.</p><p>"I can't help you," she told the old lady and prepared to launch into her customary speech about contacting local authorities.</p><p>"I haven't asked the favor yet," the woman said, amused.</p><p>Sighing, Dove-Gray inclined her head and opened her hands. "What is the favor?"</p><p>"First," she replied, "I would like to offer you comfort. Old Streets will be sorely missed."</p><p>"Yes," Dove-Gray said. Without his advice, she expected that her current project would take twice as long as she'd originally estimated. "Thank you."</p><p>"Now for the favor."</p><p>"I really can't do anything," Dove-Gray put in. "I'm a scholar, not a —"</p><p>"Miracle worker?"</p><p>"I was going to say magician."</p><p>She laughed silently, the memory beads in her hair clinking as her shoulders shook. "Of course not. There's no such thing." </p><p>She took Dove-Gray by the hand and led her around the edge of the platform, past the small altar for Streets, then down a short flight of rope-and-board stairs to a small, oval space. It was remarkable for being empty; everything inside the Martial Defenders was overloaded and piled with material, but this cavity was bare. The far wall, covered in massive blooms of rust, looked like it could be part of the original robot structure.</p><p>The longer she looked around, the more lost Dove-Gray became. They had not moved, but dizziness scratched at the edges of her senses. There seemed to be no floor beneath her feet, but she was up very high, only a moment later to realize she'd sunk quite deep and was now looking up. A blink, and the space bulged, from something convex that she looked <i>into</i> to something concave that she looked <i>at</i>. Its volume nudged her backwards. Another blink, and it turned back right side out.</p><p>"Mother," Dove-Gray said, "I can't stay here."</p><p>The scintillator pendant on Dove-Gray's necklace started blinking. Rapidly at first, then <i>manically</i>.</p><p>"Interesting," the old lady said. She held up her own scintillator, a clunky older model that cuffed the upper arm. It did not respond.</p><p>"You need to get that fixed," Dove-Gray told her. Because they were compulsory as well as state-issued, scintillators were easy enough to exchange. "Just visit your local —"</p><p>"Authority, I know. This is the seventy-eighth scintillator we've brought in here. They can't all be broken, can they?"</p><p>"I wouldn't know about that," Dove-Gray said as she backed out of the rusted room and took the first turn she found. "Ask your local authority."</p><p>Her pendant trembled against the hollow of her throat. Its blinks gradually fell away the farther she got.  </p><p>*</p><p>It was at the close of their fifth job that Dove-Gray first saw the blade. They were a moon away from Rakapla, where if it wasn't sleeting ice, it was blizzarding with a spike of methane. The target was a customs inspector who'd diversified into counterfeiting soaps and other personal care products. He owed Min's contractee a huge sum that had staked the machinery for their manufacture.</p><p>He proved, as Min had expected, easy to pin down but difficult to extract the money from.</p><p>Dove-Gray watched the door while Min negotiated. She'd taken a sledgehammer to the equipment. Now that it was destroyed, she was tired, eager for rest.</p><p>When the argument ceased, both their voices dropping, she glanced over her shoulder. The inspector was cowering, a stubby arm over his face, while Min bore down on him. Her expression was <i>avid</i>, intense, her teeth bared and eyes slitted.</p><p>Dove-Gray wasn't <i>surprised</i> by the violence. It stood to reason that most targets would rather take a beating rather than pay. Lack of surprise did not mean presence of enjoyment. She grimaced, seeing the grin on Min's face, and knew that Min was going to beat this man to a pulp.</p><p>And then Min shook out her right hand, the one traced with tattoos. They caught the light, flashed red and wet like blood, as a blade snapped into existence: sharplight,  and high-quality sharplight at that, moving fast enough that the air whimpered. It cut the man's torso in half, then swept back to plunge into his chest, cracking his ribs as it went. When it pinned his upper half to the floor like an insect specimen, the blade wobbled and throbbed.</p><p>"Min!"</p><p>Min did not react. The blade in her hand glowed, then dimmed down from silver to dark, bloody shadows, before it vanished.</p><p>"Min?" Dove-Gray asked, much more quietly.</p><p>Min wiped the sweat from her face — with her left hand, Dove-Gray noted. "Hey," she said, thickly, as if waking slowly. "Let's get out of here, huh?"</p><p>Dove-Gray waited until they were safely back on a freighter bound for Pandper Station. They'd eaten a little, washed up, and their relatively spacious berth even allowed for them both to stretch out.</p><p>"What is in your hand?" Dove-Gray asked then. </p><p>"Nothing?" Min sat up. Her eyes looked glassy. "You still hungry? I could go look for a dispenser..."</p><p>"<i>In</i> your hand," Dove-Gray repeated. "Your sword. What is that?"</p><p>"Oh, that?" Min replied, her tone bright with sarcastic mockery. "Just a little thing I like to call the thirsty blade. It's some dark magic. Keeps my life spicy."</p><p>"There's no such thing as magic," Dove-Gray said.</p><p>Min snorted and flexed her fingers. "Tell that to the magic bloodthirsty soul-sucking sword that lives in my hand."</p><p>"Certainly there must be some advanced cyborganic interfaces —" Dove-Gray kept her gaze focused just past Min's shoulder, lest she get distracted.</p><p>"— that feed on blood —"</p><p>"— translate something in the blood — hemoglobin? Something at the chromosomal level? — for your CNS and —"</p><p>Min was smiling as she leaned in and filled Dove-Gray's field of vision. "It's magic, babe."</p><p>"Don't call me —"</p><p>"Sorry. But it's magic."</p><p>"Magic means external forces and powers beyond our understanding and grasp," Dove-Gray said. The proposition was utterly ridiculous. "Forces that remain beyond comprehension, let alone control." </p><p>Min's smile gentled. "Magic means it does weird shit and we don't know why, yeah, that's what I'm saying."</p><p>Dove-Gray continued as if Min hadn't spoken. "But everything can be analyzed. It can all be understood, however provisionally at first."</p><p>"Fine." Min sighed. She often did, in the midst of their conversations that invariably veered into argument. Keeping up half of a conversation when your partner was barely acknowledging you was actually exhausting, she'd said the last time Dove-Gray observed the frequency of her sighs. "Maybe it can. But does it <i>have</i> to be?"</p><p>Dove-Gray stared at her. No matter how often they argued, the woman's cheerful embrace of ignorance kept surprising her. "Of course it has to be. Where would we be otherwise?"</p><p>"Dunno. I probably wouldn't have a magic sword in my hand and you'd be a happy tree-loving shaman back on Vass or wherever."</p><p>She thought she was making a joke, but Dove-Gray frowned and, on reflection, Min did, too. That was a shitty joke; her impulse to lighten and dispel every serious mood really needed to be kept in check. </p><p>"Sorry," she said, but Dove-Gray didn't dignify that with a response.</p><p>*</p><p>Min returned from the washroom in their current hostel ready to argue. They'd holed up in a rundown residential district in the capital of a smoggy, humid exoplanet in the contested territories.</p><p>"So you can do scholarly-hand of smartness, whatever it's called, incapacitate an adult at three paces, break a guy's nose with a flick of the finger, but you don't believe in magic?"</p><p>Dove-Gray didn't look away from the three data scrolls she was in the middle of comparing. "That was a week ago. You're still thinking about it?"</p><p>"No, just came to me while I was in the bath," Min admitted.</p><p>"Palm of wisdom manipulates standard, well-studied energy signatures across a body," Dove-Gray murmured. "That isn't magic. Far from it."</p><p>"Sounds like magic to me." Min bent over to work dry her hair.</p><p>"Then I suggest you enlarge your understanding of the world."</p><p>"Eh." Min shrugged. "I'll get around to it."</p><p>*</p><p>Min stopped at Severny Station on her way back from visiting the debt agency. She meant to grab some changes of clothes for herself as well as Dove-Gray, maybe dig out some of the music data-streams she'd packed away. Dove-Gray might have been the smartest person she'd ever met, but Min remained constantly astonished at how little the woman knew about good music.</p><p>She waved to Orwin as she passed the Travel Authority, then ducked into the office when they beckoned her inside.</p><p>"Solo again?" they asked. "Good for you."</p><p>"Just a quick stop," she said. "How're you? How's the —"</p><p>They interrupted before she could finish. "You haven't dropped the scholar?"</p><p>Min pressed her lips together for a moment. Orwin rarely sounded so sharp; it was even more rare for them to criticize anyone, especially a friend. "No. Why the shock?"</p><p>Their gaze darted away, first over her shoulder, then back to their feeds. "I'd stay solo, that's all. Safer that way."</p><p>"What've you heard, buddy?"</p><p>Orwin cleared their throat. "Some alerts  coming in. Young scapist, impersonating a scholar, ties to the scapists who brought down the two Defenders, report if observed." They coughed again and shrugged. "It's probably nothing, but who needs the trouble?"</p><p>"They're really saying scapists bombed their own home," Min said. She couldn't even make it a question. "Fucking assholes."</p><p>Orwin's eyes widened. "Ma'am, if you don't have Travel Authority business, I'd like to ask you to move on."</p><p>She got the message and left.</p><p>The state knew exactly where Dove-Gray was. Those alerts were nothing but bald and obvious intimidation, reminding her and anyone with her about its reach and power.</p><p>Min kicked the compost tube as she passed, but it barely dented, and then she had to hobble for the rest of the day.</p><p>*</p><p>She didn't tell Dove-Gray about the alerts. Either she'd learn about them or she wouldn't; Min decided to leave that up to chance. She was a coward, she knew that well, when it came to bad news or uncomfortable truths.</p><p>They set out on a three-satellite hop among jobs. Dove-Gray had stopped offering advice on jobs and eased right into arranging them.</p><p>When their cruiser neared atmosphere and the pockmarked green-and-asphalt colored surface of the station, Min made sure everything was ready to go. She wanted to head out for the target's office directly from the docks.</p><p>"I brought you a disguise," Min said, tossing the satchel at Dove-Gray. </p><p>"Why do I need a disguise?"</p><p>"We're doing stealth work," Min improvised. "Don't want anyone noticing a scholar if we can help."</p><p>Dove-Gray pressed her lips together as she eyed Min.</p><p>"It's the red thing. You're gonna love it."</p><p>"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"</p><p>Until she'd met Dove-Gray, it hadn't occurred to Min not to enjoy her work. "Well, yeah."</p><p>"Interesting." The way she said that, it sounded both condescending and faintly affectionate. Either one on its own would have annoyed Min, but the combination just left her confused more than anything else.</p><p>"Look, you get changed and then —" She was about to turn around and give Dove-Gray a measure of privacy when Dove-Gray stood, unclasped her robe, and let it fall. </p><p>They'd basically been living in each other's laps for several weeks now, yet this felt different. Starkly intimate, almost trusting.</p><p>Unhurriedly, calmly, Dove-Gray shook out the disguise — trousers and a clingy tunic — and dressed. </p><p>Min closed her eyes, then felt like a child for doing so. <i>The cranky obnoxious nerd was hot</i>: she already knew that, but she hadn't quite let herself put that into words. Now, however, that she'd seen full breasts and a soft belly, the flare of hips, the words would not leave her mind.</p><p>"All right?" Dove-Gray spread her arms and lifted her chin.</p><p>"Your, your hair?" Min gestured vaguely at her own head.</p><p>"Oh, right. Thank you." She wrapped the length of dark pseudo-silk around her head, hiding both her locs and the beaded netting woven amid them. "Better?"</p><p>Min blinked. "I mean, I like it better showing, but —"</p><p>Dove-Gray rolled her eyes. "Does the disguise work?"</p><p>"Oh," Min said. "Yeah, it works."</p><p>*</p><p>Nearly everywhere they visited, Min ran into someone she knew. A port clerk here, a pub waitress there, several mechanics at a satellite housing complex, a very beautiful fellow mercenary in the queue for customs inspections.</p><p>"You could run for office," Dove-Gray said mildly when Min turned back to her.</p><p>"Eh?"</p><p>"Because you know everyone."</p><p>Min looked confused, then abashed. "I've just been doing this a while. You'll get there."</p><p>Dove-Gray was about to respond — though she had no idea what to say — when the merc reappeared, slinging a muscular arm around Min's neck. She was so large and gorgeous that, next to her, Min actually looked a little small, grubby, even scrawny.</p><p>"You keep up whatever you're doing," the merc told Dove-Gray, pulling Min close to knuckle at her hair. "Never seen this one so sweet-tempered."</p><p>"She's never been otherwise with me," Dove-Gray said, while Min twisted to and fro in the woman's hold. In fact, Min's persistent good mood was almost unbearable — or it would have been, if it weren't so annoyingly charming. She smiled throughout each fight. Even when she tried to argue with Dove-Gray, she did it with a grin on her face.</p><p>After another such encounter, this time with a junior pilot on their shuttle between Pandper and Stakhal, Min caught Dove-Gray's hand and squeezed. "You're mad?"</p><p>"Of course I'm not mad," Dove-Gray said. "What's there to be mad about?"</p><p>Min seemed fretful; she found it difficult, Dove-Gray had observed countless times, to name any emotion that was remotely negative. "Me knowing so many people, I just thought maybe —"</p><p>"It's interesting," Dove-Gray said. "Your behavior intrigues me."</p><p>Min released her hand and assumed an awkward, if sincere, attitude of detachment. "Oh? Am I your new research subject? A <i>specimen?</i>"</p><p>"In some ways, yes."</p><p>"So how am I interesting?"</p><p>"For all your effusiveness and, I'll admit, surprisingly wide social network, you aren't actually all that extroverted. Which leads one —"</p><p>"I'm totally extra," Min put in, smiling at her own attempt at humor, "not to mention verted to hell and back."</p><p>Dove-Gray tried to repress her answering smile. She could not. "Perhaps I need to reconsider, then."</p><p>A few small jobs and six satellite hops later, Min looked up from her evening meal and asked, "You can still get lonely, right? Even if you're an extrovert."</p><p>It took Dove-Gray a moment to grasp what she meant. "Of course. Introversion doesn't mean self-sufficiency."</p><p>"You just make it seem that way, I guess." Min scraped her spoon across her plate, gathering up sauce before sticking it in her mouth to suck clean. </p><p>"I'm not self-sufficient."</p><p>Min put down her spoon. "Sure you are. Like a whole world unto yourself, closed down, shut tight."</p><p>Dove-Gray concentrated on refilling her own plate from the common platter, not that she was all that hungry.</p><p>*</p><p>Min beamed at the data-feed of her business account. It had never been so plump, even with the extra expense of supporting a subcontractor. </p><p>"You know," she said when Dove-Gray emerged from the bunkroom, eyes squinty with research-fatigue, "keep this up, you can get out to Kuu by the end of the year."</p><p>"Why would I go there?" Dove-Gray bit her lip for a moment, then added, "I don't want a cyborganic implant, no offense."</p><p>Min nodded and grinned, acknowledging the joke. "Go there for new ID papers," she started, only to remember too late that Dove-Gray refused to consider that plan. Min waved her hand, as if she could take back her words, and said quickly, "I know you said —"</p><p>Dove-Gray dipped her head. "I'm listening."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"Yes. End of the year, you said?" </p><p>"Definitely." Min told her, flushed with relief. Giving Dove-Gray good news like this, making her smile a little and look contemplative, felt wonderful.</p><p>"You think so?" Dove-Gray sank onto the bench beside her and sipped at a rehydro packet.</p><p>"Yeah," Min said. "I'm sure of it."</p><p>Dove-Gray didn't say anything else, but she looked like she was smiling inside. Outside, to Min's eye, she simply looked remote, but there was something to the tilt of her head, or the distance in her eyes, that suggested a private happiness.</p><p>"It'll be great," Min continued. She took a container of tuber salad from the metered dispenser and tore it open. "With that, we can do so many more jobs..."</p><p>Dove-Gray's expression, as mild as it had been, changed. "I won't be doing this work any longer."</p><p>Min shoved her food away. "What?"</p><p>"When I get the new identity. I'll sit the examinations again."</p><p>"That's —" Min shook her head, tried to think, gave up. "You're serious?"</p><p>"Of course I am."</p><p>"But that's stupid!"</p><p>"Pardon me?"</p><p>"Why would you even want to go back?"</p><p>Dove-Gray stared at her. "I don't follow."</p><p>"The scholars. The, the <i>fellowship</i> of civil geniuses. It's awful." Min tore her flatbread into three equal pieces, then each of those in half. Piling them, squaring off the stack, she said, "It's a whole shitty complicated system." She swallowed, ignoring Dove-Gray's grimace of disgust, and added, "Better to be out of there, I say."</p><p>"Well, <i>you</i> say, sure."</p><p>"What's that supposed to mean?" She had been flushed and happy; now she was overheated and bristling.</p><p>"I'm going back," Dove-Gray said. "That isn't negotiable."</p><p>"Hey, hey," Min said, raising her palms. "I don't care! Especially not enough to 'negotiate'."</p><p>"Good."</p><p>"None of my business."</p><p>"No, it's not."</p><p>"Good."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p> </p><p>Two hours later, they were still silent and tense. Dove-Gray wished they'd spent all their recent profits on a luminal ship; they'd already be at their destination by now, too busy to stay like this, trapped in the amber of an irresolvable dispute.</p><p>She was weary. Drained of whatever spite she'd felt, and tired now. She cleared her throat a few times, but Min ignored her. </p><p>"Min —"</p><p>Head tipped against an O<sub>2</sub> duct, jaw tight and thrust forward, Min didn't react.</p><p>"Min."</p><p>Finally, dully: "<i>What</i>."</p><p>Dove-Gray wanted to start fresh. She needed to change the subject, but it couldn't sound like that was what she was doing, lest Min start to argue about that. </p><p>"I've been thinking about the new papers. Do they give you a name or can you choose it?"</p><p>Min huffed a breath out her nose. It was difficult for her, Dove-Gray knew, to ignore even the plainest appeal for help or information. "Depends, probably. Never done it."</p><p>"I see. Still, it'll be a shame to lose my name. I'm very fond of it."</p><p>It was quiet again, for a little too long, but then Min recrossed her legs and unfolded her arms. "What's your name mean?"</p><p>"It's just a color. My cohort were all color names, like Rust-Brown, Spring-Green, Cherenkov-Blue. Dove-Gray."</p><p>Min nodded, smiling a little. "Okay, one more question."</p><p>"Mmm?"</p><p>"What's a dove?"</p><p>Dove-Gray blinked a few times before swallowing. "It was a bird. Related to the pigeon, if you know of them."</p><p>"Pigeons? We've got them everywhere at home, yeah." Her mouth twisted this way, that way, and she added, "they're pests, you know."</p><p>"A dove was smaller than a pigeon, often a light lavender grayish shade."</p><p> </p><p>Min knew very well what Dove-Gray was doing, suddenly talking in such a sweet, coaxing tone. She couldn't be angry, however; she was relieved all over again. She said, testing the sound as the words took on new meanings, "dove gray."</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Huh," Min said. "Pretty. Never knew scholars changed their names. Your whole cohort got new names?"</p><p>"We didn't have names before," Dove-Gray said. Min must have looked confused, or as stupid as she felt, because Dove-Gray added, "My cohort of orphans. Scapists. Not scholars."</p><p>Min's stomach clenched and she felt cold, then empty, then cold again. "Oh, shit. Sorry."</p><p>Dove-Gray scratched her temple. "You don't need to apologize."</p><p>"I kind of do!" Min wanted to jump out of her skin. She'd been so careful not to question Dove-Gray, not press her on personal details, but, true to form, here she'd just blundered into some of the most personal details of all. "I really do."</p><p>Dove-Gray leaned forward and said, very clearly, her eyes intent and steady, "No. You don't. All right?"</p><p>When she clasped Min's hand, and Min squeezed back, neither wanted to be the first to let go.</p><p>*</p><p>They slept together for the first time after their next job. Min was banged around, emerging victorious but with a black eye, wrenched shoulder, and some slashes across her back. Dove-Gray bandaged her up, then canceled their next two jobs.</p><p>"You can't keep me here in bed," Min complained. "I've had worse! On my own! Let me up."</p><p>"No," Dove-Gray said. "And you've had worse? Really?"</p><p>Min sniffed. "Lots worse. Broke an ankle, got concussed, and dislocated my collarbone all in one fight once. Still made it out."</p><p>"That's nothing to brag about."</p><p>"Sure it is." Min struggled to prop herself up on her elbow, but gave up. "It's very cool and highly admirable."</p><p>"It's reckless and ridiculous," Dove-Gray told her.</p><p>"That's what I said," Min replied, grinning.</p><p>A rush of something like affection, but grittier and far <i>warmer</i>, almost magma-like, spread through Dove-Gray as she looked at Min's stubborn expression, her disheveled hair and bright, clever eyes.</p><p>"Reckless and ridiculous," she repeated.</p><p>"You can't keep me here," Min protested. </p><p>"Can't I?" Dove-Gray asked, nudging her back with a hand on Min's good shoulder, kissing her as they moved.</p><p>Min muttered something into the kiss. It didn't matter; her mouth was slick and hot and Dove-Gray kissed her more deeply, searchingly.</p><p>*</p><p>After Min healed up and they spent probably too much time in bed, they hit something of a dry patch, job-wise. They lost two close bids, got scooped on another, fought their way through a free-for-all off Pandper, then found only a few small errands.</p><p>On the way to one of those piddling jobs, Dove-Gray reviewed their accounts and professional postings. "Why didn't you take the job on Meerny?"</p><p>Min sighed and scratched her cheek. "Too close to home."</p><p>"And?"</p><p>"I don't feel like dealing with my family."</p><p>Dove-Gray sat quietly and let Min talk.</p><p>"They don't approve of my..." She trailed off, squinting one eye, trying to think of the best way to describe it. "Lifestyle? Career. Vocation."</p><p>"Too dangerous?" Dove-Gray asked, still bothered by the injuries she'd tended as well as the ones she'd heard about.</p><p>"What? No. I mean, yeah, it is, but that's not their issue." She shifted to get more comfortable. "They don't believe in moneylending."</p><p>"Usury?"</p><p>"Borrowing, period, forget interest. It's a whole thing with them."</p><p>"You're Dalascilki?" Dove-Gray asked.</p><p>"Do I want to know how you guessed that?"</p><p>"It makes perfect sense, now that I think about it —" She was off and musing. "Your materialism, the practicality, the refusal to look at anything more abstract than the horizon..."</p><p>"Excuse me?" It sounded like she was being insulted, but Min was unsure. Knowing Dove-Gray, the likelihood increased, but she'd like to be certain before taking offense.</p><p>Dove-Gray, however, was smiling at her. She looked like someone had just set her down in front of a whole dessert buffet and told her to let loose. "How in the bright beautiful world did a nice Dalascilk girl from Meerny become a loan shark?"</p><p>"I'm a retrieval contractor," Min muttered but when Dove-Gray didn't react, she added, "it's a long story."</p><p>Dove-Gray looked around their narrow cabin. They'd been in orbit around Jasper for half a day already. "All we've got is time."</p><p> </p><p>Min was seventeen, out of school and bumming around her homeworld with a satchel on her shoulder and an out-of-tune spike fiddle in her hand. She had vague dreams about joining a band or maybe writing epic poetry, maybe even going to other moons or satellites should the opportunity arise. For the time being, she drank a lot of fermented rice-and-citrus cocktails, flirted with every woman she met, and worked irregularly shifting freight in port warehouses or as extra security.</p><p>Shortly after the winter rains, she was summoned back home. The family farmstead was about to be sold. </p><p>The estate — three farms, a small and stubborn vineyard, and several leased paddies — had been theirs for over three hundred years. Without informing anyone (because no one would have approved), her grandfather and his two sisters had taken out a series of loans against the property in order to finance...something. The surviving sister wouldn't say what, and claimed that it no longer mattered.</p><p>"I would kill to know what they blew the money on," Min said here. Dove-Gray cast a very significant look at Min's hand and mouthed 'kill?', Min shook her head. "I'd metaphorically kill, fine. Not literally slay. Probably. Most likely. Depends on who I was talking to, really..."</p><p>"So they borrowed a lot," Dove-Gray said, coaxing her back to the main story before she could get distracted by evaluating various homicidal targets among her kin and relations. "Despite your strong cultural tradition against that very notion."</p><p>"Keep what you have," Min said, quoting the old saying, "and look away from what you don't."</p><p>"Interesting."</p><p>"It's really not," Min told her. "It's dumb and mean and no one thinks it applies to them. It's just a very convenient way to judge other people for failing these standards."</p><p>Dove-Gray looked about a millisecond away from debating her on that. It would probably involve copious references to various sociological theories and competing cultural interpretations, so Min returned to her story.</p><p>The family meeting at which the bad news had been broken lasted for hours, well past second moonrise. The next morning, when she was still thick-headed with exhaustion and grief, Min's older brother took her aside. Rämo had gotten it into his head that he could save the farm by nexitating himself to the Martial Heroes: selling seven years of his service for a single lump sum.</p><p>"That's obscene," Dove-Gray said.</p><p>"Also stupid, considering Rämo has a club foot and terrible myopia," Min said. "They'd never take him, as a nexus or enlistee."</p><p>As she listened, Dove-Gray had her chin in her hand, a loc twisting in her fingers. She looked calm and intent, absorbing every ridiculous detail and embarrassing aside. Min grew warm and somehow <i>pleased</i> under her serene attention, such that she drew out the story, including anecdotes about Rämo's lovely wife and the great-aunt's favored child, a total asshole named Brun.</p><p>She'd just wrapped up the side-story about Brun's misadventures with the rice thresher when Dove-Gray spoke. "So you nectitated — it's not 'nexitate', that's a backformation — yourself to save Rämo and the farm."</p><p>"I contracted with the note-owner," Min said, feeling suddenly as nitpicky as Dove-Gray herself on a bad day, "to assume those loans, yeah."</p><p>"And part of that contract is collecting payments from others."</p><p>"Yeah." </p><p>"Including, you claim, feeding a cursed artifact via blood and souls."</p><p>"You make me sound —" Min shook her head. "Never mind."</p><p>Dove-Gray went quiet.</p><p>Min slid down in her seat, the pleasure of storytelling drained from her. "If you knew all this, why'd you let me talk so much?"</p><p>"I only understood it as you explained the circumstances." Dove-Gray frowned slightly. "Why are you angry?"</p><p>"Not angry," Min said and checked her data feed. "Just tired."</p><p>*</p><p>"I don't get it," Min said thickly after they'd had sex, dozed off, then stirred awake. She was still naked, plastered against Dove-Gray's side, her arm flung across Dove-Gray's waist. </p><p>"What's that?" Dove-Gray murmured. She lay on her back, eyes closed; the safety lights from the corridor outside picked out the swell of her cheek and curve of her lips against the dark.</p><p>"You really go all out. Like, you —. You blow my fucking mind."</p><p>Dove-Gray smiled and turned to kiss the side of Min's shoulder. "It's easy with you."</p><p>Min didn't know how to take that. "Thanks?"</p><p>"Welcome."</p><p>"I just never thought —" She stopped and shrugged. She was tired and spent and <i>happy</i>. Why endanger that with her dumb thoughts? "Forget it."</p><p>"Forgotten," Dove-Gray said and kissed Min's shoulder again. She sucked lightly, teasingly, but it lit up every nerve that had so recently been blazing. Min groaned and fumbled to reach Dove-Gray's neck, pulling her close to kiss her for real.</p><p>So that was two out of three essential activities they were very good at together.  Working and screwing were excellent with Dove-Gray. Maybe conversation was overrated.</p><p>*</p><p>They did end up on Meerny, chasing down a fugitive grain wholesaler. On their way off-moon, literally at the jitney stop for the spaceport, Min ran into her cousin Towee's wife. Towee had lost his arm in a crash and couldn't work; his wife's salary wasn't stretching far enough; surely Min could help them.</p><p>Knowing they could be here a while, Min rented a cottage on the edge of the city and set up Dove-Gray with the best data-feeds available. She visited Towee and a few different merchants, then expanded her search to back offices. Towee was literate, which was a plus, but he was also very talkative and opinionated. Finding him a position proved to be more of a challenge than she'd expected.</p><p>"Pigeon!" Min called from the grounds as she returned from a jaunt to the southern province. "Hey, Pigeon birdgirl!"</p><p>"Don't call me that," Dove-Gray yelled back.</p><p>"Too late, already did." Min stomped into the room, her arms full of firewood. "How's the research going?"</p><p>"If I just had the feed access I used to..." Dove-Gray waved that thought away. "It is proceeding. How was your trip?"</p><p>Having added the wood to the stack in the corner, Min brushed off her hands. "Fine, good, nothing to write home about. Just —" She planted her fists on her hips and threw out her chest, grinning widely. "More than enough to <i>come</i> home about. Get it?"</p><p>Nodding, Dove-Gray found that she was smiling in return, despite the weakness of the wordplay. "Got it, yes."</p><p>Meerny's southern peninsula cuisine specialized in sedges, marsh grasses, and nettles. Eager for Dove-Gray to taste them, Min brought three different dishes back with her. </p><p>Over dinner, she described her efforts on Towee's behalf while keeping a keen eye on Dove-Gray's reactions to the stew and stir fries. </p><p>"Never been so glad to have this job," she told Dove-Gray and wiggled the fingers on her right hand. "Messy and sad as it can be, at least it's work. Good, regular work I love."</p><p>"Maybe your cousin needs to reevaluate his options," Dove-Gray started to say.</p><p>Min waved her off. "It's not that easy."</p><p>"I didn't say it was easy, I said —"</p><p>"How's he going to eat in the meantime?"</p><p>"You're mad. I don't understand —"</p><p>Their arguments flared like this, sudden and intense.</p><p>The anger took hold of Min before she could help it. "Of course you don't understand, you were a scholar! No one's got it easier, except maybe the oligarchs —" She tried to bite back what she'd said and add a dumb joke. "— but I think being super-tacky and exploitative probably takes a toll."</p><p>Dove-Gray didn't smile at any of that. Before Min could keep talking and further erase the fact that she'd ever mentioned the scholarly fellowship, Dove-Gray silenced her with a look.</p><p>She didn't look mad, at least. Just sad.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Min said, and then, "food's getting cold."</p><p>*</p><p>Three henchmen were down, their boss weeping as he signed away the payments, while Dove-Gray unwrapped a bandage for Min's wrist.</p><p>"Might be falling for you," Min admitted.  It felt good to say; the words took all the quicksilver, electric-eel feelings, every silly grin and stammered reply and odd, inescapable daydream, and clarified them.</p><p>It was <i>splendid</i>, like she could see and think and <i>be</i> at last.</p><p>Dove-Gray's gaze flickered up and met her own.</p><p>Then Dove-Gray went and said, lightly, "Now who's ridiculous?"</p><p>Those clarified feelings clotted, became cement, and dropped right on her solar plexus. Pinned her flat and open, and Min didn't struggle. "Okay."</p><p>Dove-Gray looked at her again, more closely. "You're serious?"</p><p>Swallowing, Min moved away. She kicked the biggest, meanest henchman as she passed. "Nah, Pigeon. Probably just concussed."</p><p>*</p><p>Dove-Gray talked most when it was quiet and dark. When other people slept, she opened up. Just now, nearly a day after they'd gotten harassed in the customs queue for her scapist hair and beads, she was talking through lies and truths about the scapists. </p><p>In their narrow berth in a sleek transport past the sodium mines, she rested her cheek against Min's arm. She said, "They were three separate worlds, you know. They're only lumped together now because of the evacuations."</p><p>Min remembered the footage from her childhood — entire cargo freighters and Martial Defenders packed with desperate people, making ill-advised near-luminal-speed flights directly from the moons' surfaces.</p><p>"They shared certain aspects of culture, of course," Dove-Gray continued. She was musing in the sort of slow, meditative rhythm that her voice took on when she was reading or researching a target.</p><p>She never talked about herself or the scapists. Min remained quiet. Even held herself still, lest she interrupt. </p><p>"Vass, Greenthorn, Nizterre," Dove-Gray said. In hushed dark, the words sounded like an incantation.</p><p>"Which was yours?" Min ventured. She tried to picture three entire worlds, dead and emptied, just garbage and rubble left behind, and her mind pulled apart.</p><p>"Don't know. They found me after the landings with a bunch of other kids. We could have been from anywhere. Nowhere."</p><p>Min pushed herself up onto her elbow and tried to catch Dove-Gray's eye. This felt suddenly, extremely important. "There must be ways to know. Genetics?"</p><p>"All the dead were incinerated during the flights," Dove-Gray said. "Or released out the vents. All the state knew was I had no close relatives among the survivors." She shivered and tugged the blanket over them. "I was hardly unique, you know. Please don't think —"</p><p>"Oh, sure, all right," Min said, settling back down. "I'll be sure to think you're totally ordinary, no worries."</p><p>Dove-Gray laughed, low in her throat. It was a lovely sound, the sort of music Min once longed to make. "Thank you. I appreciate that."</p><p>Her skin was soft and warm, fragrant with sweat and floral oils. Min breathed it in.</p><p>*</p><p>Dove-Gray left for Kuu a week later.</p><p>When she announced her departure, Min slumped over, holding herself as if needing to puke. "I don't get it. Why are you going?"</p><p>"It's not for you to get." She emphasized <i>get</i> and Min knew the implication:  Min wasn't even capable of <i>getting</i> it, stupid woman. "I'm going to get my life back."</p><p>There wasn't, so far as Min understood, anything to get back. The state had taken it away. It was gone.</p><p>Her sinuses burned as she struggled to think clearly. "Why? What's to get back?"</p><p>Dove-Gray laughed at her, harsh and high. "My <i>life</i>."</p><p>"You're alive now!" Min shouted, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Dove-Gray, of course, looked undisturbed. Min pinched the bridge of her nose; her eyes stung. More quietly, she said, "Why not just be okay with what you have? That's what I want to know."</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded, as if she'd expected this. Always several steps ahead, wasn't she? "Complacent. You want me complacent."</p><p>"No." Min heard how sullen she sounded but didn't give a shit. "Content."</p><p>"I have to do this. That's all there is to it."</p><p>"Just think we have a good thing and —" She was on her feet now, desperate to move.</p><p>But Dove-Gray just opened her satchel and continued packing. "Sure. <i>You</i> think so."</p><p>Min didn't want to fathom the meaning of that. She didn't have to. Her thoughts seized up and her skin went bisque-hard and lantern-hot. </p><p>"I guess I'll see you around, then," she said from the door. She tossed a data-key to the floor. "Here's my funds account. Take whatever you need."</p><p>Dove-Gray bit her lip hard enough to make it blanch. "I can't do that."</p><p>"Do it," Min said, ready to shake apart. Half-blind and feverish with too many emotions, she fumbled for her satchel as moved into the passage. "Prove how gullible and trusting and fucking stupid I am, clear me out, I don't fucking care."</p><p>"Min!"</p><p>She kept walking.</p>
<h3>five months later</h3><p>Min staggered back under the guard's blow. She hit the wall, took a breath, and looked for an opening. The guy was a solid mass, however, bearing down on her and grinning as he came. Snarling, even.</p><p>"Your boss already paid!" she shouted again. He hadn't listened the first twenty times, but she didn't have any options left. "You're off the clock! The fuck are you doing?"</p><p>Pain throbbed in her sword-hand, out of time with her heartbeat, excruciating and crystal-sharp. Flailing, early in the fight, he'd grabbed it and <i>crushed</i> the bones. She shook it anyway, one last time, hoping against hope. Her sword didn't appear, but the motion made her balance reel and upend itself.</p><p>"You're gonna —" The mook stopped, mouth hanging open. Surprise broke over his face; a moment later, he crumpled to his knees, then pitched forward, knocking Min aside.</p><p>The space where he'd been seemed twice as large, now that he'd slid out of it. In its center stood a slight woman, a corona of locs haloing her head. Grimacing, she tucked a sharplight gun back into the holster at her waist, then offered Min a hand up.</p><p>"Look at you handling yourself," she said as Min sprang to embrace her and rock her back and forth. "Impressive."</p><p>"Pigeon!" Min couldn't think of anything to say but the nickname, babbled again and again. "<i>Pigeon</i>!"</p><p>"Do you have any idea how hard you are to find?"</p><p>"You came back," Min said. She grasped one of Dove-Gray's hands in her good one and grinned like a fool. Elation coursed and fizzed through her, made her light on her toes and giddy.</p><p>Half of that, to be sure, was the drain of adrenaline after escaping certain death. Ever scrupulous, Dove-Gray made sure to note that fact as they picked their way through the wreckage of the office and out onto the city street.</p><p>"Whatever, whatever," Min replied. She squeezed Dove-Gray's hand all the harder now and dragged her under a rusted awning jutting from the shopfront on the corner. "You came back!"</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded. Her expression was as grave as ever, lips pursed, brows drawn. "I said I would, didn't I?"</p><p>"Not in so many words, no," Min said. "Not at all."</p><p>Dove-Gray shrugged and glanced away, suddenly shy. "No, I didn't. I should have."</p><p>"I'm not angry any more," Min told her and Dove-Gray, startled, grinned at her. </p><p>"I'm sorry," Dove-Gray said after a moment.</p><p>They had both been stupid and angry then. Carried away and cruel. After everything they'd been through together, they should have been braver. They should have been able to be honest. Min said as much, and Dove-Gray started to reply, when Min coughed, deeply, wrackingly.</p><p>"I'm going to pass out now, all right?" she whispered.</p><p>Dove-Gray caught her as she sagged. Looking back down the street, evaluating whether it was safe to move on, she said, "You didn't feed the blade, did you?"</p><p>"I can't," Min said. She held up her injured hand; seeing it, as if through Dove-Gray's eyes, brought all the pain back in force. It looked like a claw, a mangled and half-burned claw better off being amputated.</p><p>"Oh." Dove-Gray's voice was quiet. "Oh, <i>shit</i>."</p><p>"Such language you've picked up," Min said. "Can't wait to hear where you've been." She wanted it to be light and teasing, but the tightness of her voice belied how much pain she was in. "It doesn't hurt <i>that</i> much, don't worry. Just worse than anything I've ever felt in the history of my life to date."</p><p>Dove-Gray's smile flickered but failed to catch. "That's good," she said, tone bright and false. "Could always be worse, right?"</p><p>"Always." She leaned heavily against Dove-Gray as they made their way down the street.</p><p> </p><p>She'd never gone more than a week without letting the blade feed. </p><p>By the third day, her hand had healed enough that she could flex it, very gently. Her middle two fingers, however, were splinted together and dulled with gray-market painkillers that Dove-Gray had scrounged up. Min thought "gray market" was very funny, considering Dove-Gray's name, but it was hard to explain through the static in her system.</p><p>They'd holed up just off the docks in Pandper, on the top floor of a condemned warehouse. Min didn't remember how they'd gotten here, just a lot of pain and Pigeon moving around, muttering to herself, reappearing with quilts and food and analgesics and telling her not to call her Pigeon. </p><p>The hunger built inside her hand and around her wrist. The pain of the break was one thing — unpleasant, of course, in large part because the healing was part of her. The hunger of the blade was different: deeper, chillier, entirely foreign. By the close of the tenday, its presence was constant and overwhelming. Her arm was no longer her own; it twitched and spasmed, each twinge of nerves striking a cold, deep note.</p><p>"I've been doing some reading," Dove-Gray  announced that afternoon.</p><p>Min groaned. "Pigeon..."</p><p>"Don't call me that," she continued. "Anyway, I've been reading. While I was away as well as recently."</p><p>"Of course you were," Min said. "You going without reading would be worse than my blade staying thirsty."</p><p>Dove-Gray smiled, just a little. "Thanks, I think. The point is, I don't think this — your blade — has to be permanent. If anything, the words used to bind the sword to you could be fairly easily undone."</p><p>"You make it sound like magic," Min pointed out. "Binding words, huh?"</p><p>Dove-Gray rolled her eyes. "Sorry, the particle-level matching algorithm might be reverse-engineered. Better?"</p><p>"Not really," Min admitted. "Just say it normal."</p><p>"We could get the sword out of you."</p><p>"Could?" Min echoed. "Not exactly confidence-inspiring, are you?"</p><p>"It's worth a try." </p><p>"With my <i>hand</i>."</p><p>She pushed a plate of stew across the table. "Eat. You're cranky."</p><p>"I'm cranky because it hurts like hell," Min pointed out.</p><p>Dove-Gray nodded. "I know. And because you're scared."</p><p>"Am not."</p><p>"Sure you are."</p><p>"You don't know me."</p><p>At that, Dove-Gray just smirked a little. It was sexy, despite everything; her  expression made clear that she was deliberately being patient. That just irritated Min more. She gulped down the stew, awkwardly feeding herself with her left hand. At least a quarter of it spilled down her chin, if it even reached her mouth.</p><p>Dove-Gray passed her a towel; when Min had cleaned herself up, Dove-Gray said, "Admittedly, quantum-level programming — those are the magic words — is hardly my field, but —"</p><p>"Six months ago you didn't even believe it existed," Min said.</p><p>Dove-Gray's smirk became a real smile, curving and sweet. Kissable, if Min had had the wherewithal. "Look how far I've come."</p><p>Min snorted, then laughed for real. "Good one, okay. Go on."</p><p>When she felt better, she <i>definitely</i> had to point out that Dove-Gray had done lots of research for, and about, her. That was basically a proposal, if you were a giant egghead.</p><p> </p><p>Min woke in the full dark of moonset, flailing, her injured hand slamming  against the wall. Dove-Gray crouched beside the sleeping platform, a dim torch shining in her hand. The light jumped, made her face skeletal, then phosphorescent. Min only realized she was shrieking when she stopped, when her throat was raw and her mouth dry. Dove-Gray wrestled her onto her back, pinning the hand out from Min's side.</p><p>"This isn't good." Dove-Gray was breathless, locs awry, as she shifted to kneel on the crook of Min's elbow. "Are you okay?"</p><p>"No," Min muttered, her eyes closed and shame beating hot and close around her. "I'm sorry, fuck. I'm so sorry, did I hit you?"</p><p>"I'm fine," Dove-Gray said. "Are you hurt?"</p><p>Min started laughing at that, joylessly, helplessly, and only trailed off when she ran out of breath.</p><p>"Look away," Dove-Gray told her.</p><p>"What? Why? Hell, no." Min struggled to sit up, but Dove-Gray had her well and truly laid out. "What're you doing?"</p><p>"Close your eyes." Dove-Gray bit off a length of rope, then wrapped it around her upper arm.</p><p>"What are you doing?"</p><p>Dove-Gray ignored her. She tugged at the rope, tightening it until it bit into her flesh, then shifted to reach for something in her pocket.</p><p>Panic rocketed up inside Min. She didn't know what was happening; she always had some idea, however vague. But this was Dove-Gray looking fierce and distant, almost absent, pinning her down while tying off her own arm.</p><p>"Pigeon!" Min whispered, then repeated herself, louder and louder, until Dove-Gray looked up and met her eyes, somehow, in the dark.</p><p>"Get it out," she told Min. Her voice was even and cold, firm, authoritative. </p><p>"I'm not going to —"</p><p>"Get the blade out, or I'll pull it out."</p><p>Min swallowed. The hunger crawled inside her arm, roaring now in a frigid chorus. "Pigeon, please."</p><p>Dove-Gray shook her head. Just once, before reaching for Min's wrist.</p><p>She really would have pulled it out. Min believed that then, and always would. Somehow, through sheer stubborn will and overwhelming, wild intelligence, Dove-Gray would have done it.</p><p>Min swallowed one more time and let the first six inches of the blade ease out from under the bandages. In the dark, the sharplight edge glinted.</p><p>Twisting at the waist, Dove-Gray bent over Min's arm and ran the tender skin of her own inner wrist across the blade. She was counting with each breath, puffing out the numbers.</p><p>The blade would have sucked her dry, Min knew that for sure. As it was, the blade yearned for more and jerked, abortively, upwards, chasing Dove-Gray as she sat back. She was frowning as she wrapped a bandage around her wound.</p><p>"Thank you," Min whispered when she could speak again. The dull ache of the blade's hunger remained, but it was bearable now; she really had felt worse, much worse.</p><p>Dove-Gray slipped off Min to lie along her left side. "This is merely a temporary solution."</p><p>"I know," Min said. "Still. Thank you."</p><p>Dove-Gray tucked her face against Min's shoulder. "Welcome."</p><p>She was exhausted by fear and pain. She couldn't fathom how Dove-Gray must feel. "Do you need anything? How much did you give it? You should —"</p><p>"Shut up," Dove-Gray mumbled. "Just sleep."</p><p>Min tried, but all she could do was smile at the ceiling as the pain ebbed away and Dove-Gray crowded all the closer.</p><p> </p><p>  <span class="small">.end</span></p>
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